NEW ORLEANS, La. - Savanna Brewer knew that Bard College’s “early
college” program was the right place for her even as she "auditioned"
for the school.

Brewer, a senior at Bard 's half-day program in
New Orleans, hadn’t experienced a real seminar-style class until she
joined a mock class session the school held as a tryout for students
last year.

She had read the assigned material – an article about
how people talk in different regions of the country – and expected a
lecture from the teacher that expanded on it.

“That’s not what it was,” Brewer remembered. “He just asked, ‘Tell me about what you read.”

She
was even more surprised when the teacher continued asking students far
more questions than offering explanations. After
all, she was used to being fed material by teachers at her previous
schools, with little student participation.

When the discussion
delved further into how language and speaking patterns help form a
person’s identity, she was excited. This was learning. This was a place
to discover and explore ideas.

Before the class was over, she knew:

“I want more of this,” she told herself.

That's
pretty typical, said Stephen Tremaine, the director of the New Orleans
program and who has been working out details for Bard to start an early
college program in Cleveland this fall.

Bard's not as interested
in a students' previous grades or test scores, Tremaine said, as it is
in a student's inquisitiveness and excitement about tacking tough
concepts. The admissions criteria for the upcoming Bard location in Cleveland has not been decided yet, but Tremaine said Bard will interview each student and will have some measure of a student's intellectual curiosity.

That might be a paper, he said, or Bard could do what it does in New Orleans: throw applicants into a typical school discussion and
sees who sinks and who swims.

Tremaine said many students do well
in the early part of class, when the group is discussing the basics of
the assigned reading. Then when the instructor - or students - dive
deeper and students have to think fast, that's when students that will
fit in at the school stand out.

Students who get excited by the turns in the discussion are usually accepted. Students who back down aren't.

Senior
Jonathan Turner also credits his tryout seminar for convincing him the
school was right for him, when the instructor wouldn't accept a simple
answer.

"No one really wanted to raise their hands," he
remembers. "I just raised my hand and the teacher asked me a question
back, I was, like, 'What?' I had to go back into the text to understand
why the person in the text behaved the way he did."

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